Unemployment rate in the Netherlands 2003-2022

In 2022, the unemployment rate in the Netherlands was around 3.5 percent. Unemployment peaked in 2014. At the height of the financial crisis, the annual unemployment rate in the country reached 8.3 percent. After 2014, unemployment decreased again year on year. In 2021, over 408 thousand Dutch were unemployed.

 Unemployment forecasts 

  According to a recent forecast, the unemployment rate in the country is expected rise again in the future. In 2020, the northern province of Groningen was forecast to have the highest unemployment rate, at 4.5 percent. On the other side of the spectrum, in Zeeland the unemployment rate was predicted to be just three percent that year.

Long-term and short-term unemployment

  The majority of the unemployed in the Netherlands are looking for a new job for less than a year. At least one percent of the population between 2010 and 2017, however, was long-term unemployed. In 2017, just over 160 thousand people had been unemployed for 12 months or more. Long-term unemployment peaked in 2015, at nearly 260 thousand.